DESCRIPTION

The following are the basic types and structures defined for use with
the Lightweight BER library.
ber_int_t is a signed integer of at least 32 bits. It is commonly
equivalent to int. ber_uint_t is the unsigned variant of ber_int_t.
ber_len_t is an unsigned integer of at least 32 bits used to represent
a length. It is commonly equivalent to a size_t. ber_slen_t is the
signed variant to ber_len_t.
ber_tag_t is an unsigned integer of at least 32 bits used to represent
a BER tag. It is commonly equivalent to a unsignedlong.
The actual definitions of the integral impl_TYPE_t types are platform
specific.
BerValue, commonly used as structberval, is used to hold an arbitrary
sequence of octets. bv_val points to bv_len octets. bv_val is not
necessarily terminated by a NULL (zero) octet. ber_bvfree() frees a
BerValue, pointed to by bv, returned from this API. If bv is NULL, the
routine does nothing.
ber_bvecfree() frees an array of BerValues (and the array), pointed to
by bvec, returned from this API. If bvec is NULL, the routine does
nothing. ber_bvecadd() appends the bv pointer to the bvec array.
Space for the array is allocated as needed. The end of the array is
marked by a NULL pointer.
ber_bvarray_free() frees an array of BerValues (and the array), pointed
to by bvarray, returned from this API. If bvarray is NULL, the routine
does nothing. ber_bvarray_add() appends the contents of the BerValue
pointed to by bv to the bvarray array. Space for the new element is
allocated as needed. The end of the array is marked by a BerValue with
a NULL bv_val field.
ber_bvdup() returns a copy of a BerValue. The routine returns NULL
upon error (e.g. out of memory). The caller should use ber_bvfree() to
deallocate the resulting BerValue. ber_dupbv() copies a BerValue from
src to dst. If dst is NULL a new BerValue will be allocated to hold
the copy. The routine returns NULL upon error, otherwise it returns a
pointer to the copy. If dst is NULL the caller should use ber_bvfree()
to deallocate the resulting BerValue, otherwise ber_memfree() should be
used to deallocate the dst->bv_val. (The ber_bvdup() function is
internally implemented as ber_dupbv(NULL, bv). ber_bvdup() is provided
only for compatibility with an expired draft of the LDAP C API;
ber_dupbv() is the preferred interface.)
ber_bvstr() returns a BerValue containing the string pointed to by str.
ber_bvstrdup() returns a BerValue containing a copy of the string
pointed to by str. ber_str2bv() returns a BerValue containing the
string pointed to by str, whose length may be optionally specified in
len. If dup is non-zero, the BerValue will contain a copy of str. If
len is zero, the number of bytes to copy will be determined by
strlen(3), otherwise len bytes will be copied. If bv is non-NULL, the
result will be stored in the given BerValue, otherwise a new BerValue
will be allocated to store the result. NOTE: Both ber_bvstr() and
ber_bvstrdup() are implemented as macros using ber_str2bv() in this
version of the library.
BerElement is an opaque structure used to maintain state information
used in encoding and decoding. ber_alloc_t() is used to create an
empty BerElement structure. If LBER_USE_DER is specified for the
options parameter then data lengths for data written to the BerElement
will be encoded in the minimal number of octets required, otherwise
they will always be written as four byte values. ber_init() creates a
BerElement structure that is initialized with a copy of the data in its
bv parameter. ber_init2() initializes an existing BerElement ber using
the data in the bv parameter. The data is referenced directly, not
copied. The options parameter is the same as for ber_alloc_t().
ber_free() frees a BerElement pointed to by ber. If ber is NULL, the
routine does nothing. If freebuf is zero, the internal buffer is not
freed.